


The Last Romanov

by The Manwell (Manniness)



Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Drunken Confessions, Drunken Shenanigans, Inheritance, M/M, Misunderstandings, Moscow, Rimming, Romanov family, Russia, UST, Unfinished Business, Vodka
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-21
Updated: 2016-03-21
Packaged: 2018-05-28 04:00:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6314458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Manniness/pseuds/The%20Manwell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Trowa learns of his family heritage and finds himself at a lonely crossroads.<br/>Trowa POV.<br/>Post-series.  Ignores Endless Waltz.<br/>Rated M for sexual content and coarse language.</p><p>Written for Amberly for so very many reasons.<br/>Prompts: Russian Trowa & vodka (and a couple others that would be spoilery)</p><p>Music I wrote to: Without Anastasia (Alison Brown Quartet) & Once Upon a December (from the 1997 Anastasia animated movie soundtrack)<br/>Trowa’s Theme – Mitral Valve Prolapse (Joe Hedges)<br/>Duo’s Theme – The Pros and Cons of Breathing (Fall Out Boy)<br/>Lovers’ Themes – Code (Casey Stratton), With Me (Sum 41)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Last Romanov

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Amberly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amberly/gifts).



> For my very good fanfic friend, Amberly, who shared her Russian!Trowa headcanon with me and inspired this fic.

The lights of the Kremlin were mocking me.  The night view of the city mocked me.  Even this obscenely opulent hotel suite offered nothing but mockery.  Crystal-chandelier-scattered light and gilded plaster molding.  Polished hardwood floors, plush Persian rugs, and silk curtains.

What the fuck was I doing?

Something stupid.  Something even more idiotic than when I’d kissed him.

_Stop._

One command and my thoughts settled.

_Evaluate._

What did I really expect from all of this?  Would I want or even care about any of it?

Why was I even here?

Well, that question I knew the answer to.  Despite the time since the end of the war – one year, nine months, twelve days – I still didn’t have a name to call my own.  People called me Trowa Barton, but Trowa Barton was a dead man.  Taking his name hadn’t made me any more alive.

I was here on the smallest chance that maybe – just maybe – I could find something that would fill the void in the center of my chest.

Stupid.

This was a mistake.

I let the curtain fall back to cover the view of Moscow high society and went to the bedroom.  I pulled my duffel bag out from under the oversized bed.  It was still packed.  I grabbed my jacket from the armchair and stalked through the game room—

_Knock, knock-knock, knock._

I paused.  That didn’t sound like a summons from an official visitor.

I dumped my bag on the pool table – or maybe it was intended for snooker – and tossed my jacket on top.  With slower, quieter steps, I went to the door.

_Knock-knock.  Knock, knock._

Rhythmic and, to my jaded ears, sarcastic.

A crooked smile and eyes twinkling with secrets swooped out of my memory and stole my breath.  I stiffened with my hand on the brass latch.

“C’mon, man, check the peephole and lemme in already.  I come bearing gifts.”

Instructions.  Yes, I could follow those.  That was simpler – easier – than trying to reconcile the sound of his voice with the searing wave of regret.

I checked the peephole.  My memory shifted, lengthened, and warped but that smile, those eyes were the same.

I let him in.

I stared at Duo Maxwell.  He was real and standing in front of me.  I was awake this time.

“What are you doing here?”  It was the warmest welcome I could force through my dry throat.

He slid across the threshold, his back to the wall beside the door.  Ready to make a run for it.

My jaw clenched.

He raised his hand and a crinkle of plastic was his reply: a shopping bag from a local toy store.  I’d seen one from the tinted windows of the limousine after my flight had arrived.

When I didn’t reach for the bag, he shrugged and pulled out a cheap, still-shrink-wrapped game of chess.  “Never finished our game.”

This was a bad idea.  A monumentally bad idea.  I gestured him toward the game room.  He strolled over to the doorway and I flicked the Do Not Disturb card onto the outside handle.  I shut the door.  Locked it.

“Going somewhere?” Duo asked when I joined him.  His head was tilted toward my belongings piled on the pool table.

“Of course not.  I always sleep on pool tables.”

“It’s snooker,” he corrected me, eyes sparkling with sharp edges that beckoned weary travelers to answer his siren’s call and reach for him, slicing their fingers off and wrists open.

“Even better,” I countered.

He snorted.  “So, where’re we doin’ this?  Don’t wanna crowd your _‘bed’_ or anything.”

I gestured to a 5-sided teak table in the corner.

He crossed the room, braid rubbing back and forth over his ass.  “Oooh, poker,” he observed, running a hand over the surface of the table.  “Too bad I didn’t bring cards instead.”

“Doesn’t matter.  I can beat you at either.”

He laughed.  “Care to make a wager on that?”

I lifted a brow, calling him on it.

With a grin that was so sly it nearly slid off of his face, he pulled out a second item from the bag and set it on the table.

I inquired, “Do you always carry a bottle of Russia’s finest vodka around in a toy store shopping bag?”

“Doesn’t everyone?”

Again with the blade-like edge in his gaze, in the tilt of his chin, the curve of his lips, the angle of his neck.  I should say something – anything – about that moment outside Quatre’s hospital room.

_“Is he gonna make it?” Duo panted, jogging to a halt in front of me.  I’d just closed the door to Quatre’s room.  Had just asked myself what I was going to do with my life now that the war was over._

_“Yes.  He’s expected to make a full recovery.”_

_“Thank God.”_

_I moved to leave._

_“Hey!  What about our game?”_

_The chess game on Peace Million.  I hadn’t forgotten.  Hadn’t even forgotten where a single piece had been resting on the board awaiting my next move._

_“You know where to find me,” I told him, deciding in that moment that I would go back to the circus, back to gasps of awe and delighted laughter.  Back to the white noise of the crowd and heat of the lights.  Back to a temperamental manager and a hovering older “sister.”  Back to a place where I could wear as many masks as I liked._

_“Er, yeah,” he replied awkwardly, “I guess I do.”_

_He reached for the doorknob.  I reached for him.  I traced the edge of my thumb along his jaw, turning his face toward mine.  I leaned in and kissed him._

_He didn’t stiffen.  Didn’t move.  His lips didn’t even soften._

_I looked into his eyes and there was a hardness there that I couldn’t catalog.  Not hot, not cold, just… nothing._

_So.  That was how things were._

_I accepted it.  I dropped my hand and walked away._

And now he was here and that same sharp-edged hardness was pushing its way out of every plane of him.  Slow, relentless.  Glacial if only he’d been made of ice.

But he wasn’t.

“What’s the wager?” I asked.

“Winner chooses how we drink this.”

I accepted those terms with a nod.  Duo tore the plastic off of the game box and I reached for the vodka, cracking open the cap and taking a drink right from the bottle.

The liquor caressed my tongue and slid down my throat with a smooth, slow burn that felt like shame.  Or arousal.

“Well?  How is it?”

I passed him the bottle.  He avoided my hand by gripping the neck.

“It’s good,” I told him diplomatically.

He scowled.  “It damn well better be like sex in your mouth for what they wanted for it.”

I noticed he didn’t confess to actually paying for it.

I watched as the rim of the bottle pressed against his smooth, pink lips.  The clear liquor sloshed forward, slipped into his mouth.  His Adam’s apple dipped when he swallowed.  His eyes shut as he savored the same burn that was still relentlessly immolating the inside of my own skin.

“Fuck me,” he breathed.

“What’s the magic word?”

His eyes opened on a chuckle.  “Checkmate.”

I pulled out a chair and sat down.

Duo unfolded the cheap board game and tore open the plastic bags of pieces.  On Peace Million, he’d been white; I’d been black.  I watched him set the board.  He still remembered where all the pieces had last rested.  I wondered if he’d made an effort to remember or if he simply couldn’t forget.

“How come you did it?” he asked.  “The Reconciliation deal.”

“I was curious if there was anyone who would give a fuck about my scars.”

My tone must have made it clear that I’d expected the same thing I’d always been given – indifference – because his chin jerked up.  The piece he’d just set down wobbled but didn’t fall over.  “A helluva way to test your theory,” he said.  It was either a compliment or a curse.

I studied the board.  I wasn’t trying to decide my next move.  I was imagining his.  That was more relevant than recalling why I’d submitted a blood sample to the Family Reconciliation Effort, entrusting my DNA to a massive database filled with samples from people from all walks of life seeking lost loved ones.

“And you find out you’re Goddamn royalty.”  He plopped gracelessly into the chair two seats down on my left.

“Unofficially,” I asserted.

“Come tomorrow it won’t be.”

“Maybe I’ll refuse.”  I’d been on the verge of doing just that when he’d arrived.

“Don’t be a moron.  You’re gonna rock this.  And besides, if you got questions, you can speed-dial Relena.”

I blinked at his bitter tone.  “Peanut butter and jealous?”

He snorted so hard I wouldn’t have been surprised if his nose had popped off.  “Sure.  That’s why I’m here on the fucking eve of your coronation.”

“It’s a confirmation.  And that isn’t tomorrow.”  A day of meetings was what I was oh so looking forward to.  Endless presentations on why Russia needed to re-establish its royal family and follow in the footsteps of the blossoming Sanq Kingdom.  Tomorrow was the bullshit meant to convince me – supposedly the last surviving direct descendant of the Romanov family – to sign on the dotted line.

I moved a pawn.

Duo shifted a bishop forward.  “Whatever.  Doesn’t change the facts of life.”

“The facts of life,” I repeated, “don’t have anything to do with why you’re here.”

He glared at me, but it was more like a blast of heat from an open oven door, dissipating quickly.  His shrug was casual but his voice was taut with tension.  “If you know of a universe in which a nobody from L2 can finish a game of chess with the crown prince to a fucking tsar-dom, then good for you.”

I smiled and made my next move, pawn to bishop.  “That wouldn’t have stopped you.”  It hadn’t stopped him tonight; the hotel doorman and security wouldn’t have allowed him up.  At least not without a thorough search of his person and a call to me for approval.

“OK.  Point.”  He reached out to capture my pawn.

“You’re not a nobody.”

“Oh, yeah?  An’ you’re such an—”

“Expert on it?” I finished with a lift of my brows.

He had the nerve to look irritated.  “That wasn’t what I was gonna say.”

I was almost certain it was.  When he didn’t offer to finish his previous comment, I reached for a knight.

“Why the hell did you kiss me?” he suddenly demanded.

“I was hoping you’d kiss me back.”

“Smartass.  You try that move on Wufei?”

“Not yet.  Why?  Do you think he’d go for it?”

“Shut up.”  Duo braced his elbow on the table and lowered his forehead into his palm, pushing his bangs out of his eyes.  As if that would make what was right in front of his face any clearer.  He poked a rook along the board to block another pawn.

We moved pieces in silence as the clock on the mantle ticked.  Tocked.  Ticked.  Tocked.

“Look, if this evening isn’t gonna end with me tongue fucking you ‘til you scream, just gimme a head’s up now.”

I forgot how to breathe.  My head was certainly up.  Both of them.  The pawn I’d been about to sacrifice tumbled onto its side and rolled off the board.  We both watched it rock back and forth on the handcrafted tabletop.

I told him, “That’s not outside the realm of possibility.”

“Jesus,” he muttered.  He slammed his queen down on the square that should have held the fallen pawn with more force than would ever be necessary for a game of chess; his hands were no steadier than mine.

“What are we even doing here?” he demanded of me, of himself.

“Letting me beat you so I can drink this vodka out of your belly button.”

He snorted out a laugh.

I didn’t.

“I gotta learn to stop asking you about the shit that goes on inside your head.”

“You’ll be missing out.”

“There is no way I’m letting you pour vodka on me and then slurp it up.”

 I shrugged a shoulder.  “You might like it.”

“If you tell me you’re an expert on that, too, then I’m outta here.”

“What have you got to worry about?  You’re winning, aren’t you?”

“Damn right, I am.”

I grinned at his stroppy tone.  Capitulation would have been the biggest disappointment of all.

“Why’d you give up on the circus?”

I looked up and studied him.  He was staring at the board.  I said, “I didn’t.”

He gave me a look.  “Right.  This is your idea of a vacation?”

I propped my elbows on the tabletop, folded my hands together, and leaned my chin into them.  I just watched Duo, waiting for him to ask me what he really wanted to know.

He blew out a breath that ruffled his bangs.  “I don’t get it.  What the hell are you doing here?”

At least he wasn’t accusing me of being drawn in by the promise of wealth, fame, power, and shiny things.  “Why do people do anything?  They want what they do with their lives to matter.”

“The circus doesn’t meet your high standards for a meaningful life?”

I stared at him.  He glanced away and, for the first time since that moment in the hospital corridor, I saw something in him that could be apologetic.

“That was a shitty thing to say,” he rasped.  “Especially coming from a space scrapper.”

“Shut up.”

His chin jerked around at my harsh tone.

“You take other people’s failures and useless things and instead of throwing them away, you turn them into someone’s vision.  Another person’s hopes or dreams.  If you think that doesn’t make a difference, then you’re a bigger idiot than I am.  Checkmate.”

“You—wait, what?”

I sat back and let him take a look at the board.  He was indeed in check and mate.

“Fuck,” he hissed, his hands curling around the edge of the table.

I passed the bottle to him out of curtesy.  He took a long swig and handed it back.  I stood up and went to the snooker table.  I shoved all my things to one end and placed the bottle on the felt surface.  Then I turned, leaned back, and gestured for Duo to join me.

His chair scraped against the game room’s hardwood floor as he shoved himself out of it.

“Clothes,” I ordered, “off.  All of them.”

His eyes widened.  “Jesus.  Are you seriously going to—?”

“Drink this vodka however I want?  Yes.”

Duo Maxwell was breath-taking when he was furious.

I watched, arms crossed, as he stripped with angry movements, tossing his clothes on the snooker table like they were opponents in some kind of back alley brawl.  He peeled off his socks, rolled them up into a ball, and threw them at my chest.  I twisted to the side and they missed, bouncing against the mahogany wainscoting and rolling across the floor.

I walked around Duo, cataloging every dip and curve.  He was undoubtedly stronger now than he’d been at the end of the war.  He’d had a lithe, wiry strength back then.  All the months of hauling, cutting, and welding scrap had hardened and sculpted every part of him.  There weren’t many suitable drinking surfaces, but I found a few.  More than enough.

“Lie down,” I instructed, patting the felt surface of the table invitingly.

“Kinky bastard,” he muttered, bracing himself with his hands and jumping up to sit on the edge.

“On your stomach.”

With a furious sigh, he complied. 

“Sore loser,” I accused.

“Yeah, whatever.  Just get on with it, your Tsarness.  Gotta hone your sadistic edge.  Isn’t that what you Russian megalomaniacs do?”

“Only on national holidays and during happy hour.”

He snorted.

I took a moment to study him.  Fuck.  Duo Maxwell was naked, laid out on a snooker table in my hotel suite.  My hand shook as I collected the open bottle of vodka.  I clenched my other hand into a fist, counted to ten, and then I ran my palm over his bare shoulder, gently nudging his braid out of the way.  I massaged him lightly, mapping the contours of his muscular back.  He laid his forehead down on his folded forearms.

“First shot,” I warned him and tipped the bottle.  The liquor wasn’t especially cold, but he stiffened when it dribbled along his spine and pooled in the sensuous curve at the small of his back.  My mouth was already watering.  I had to pause, swallow, and then I leaned over him and sipped the vodka off of his skin.

Fuck.  Delicious.  Duo’s scent and heat mixed with the vodka’s bite and it was so easy to imagine him held captive by passion in my bed, his sharp teeth and wit, his soft mouth and moans.

I licked every last drop off of him before I poured a second.  By the time I poured my third, his torso was heaving with heavy breaths.

“This gonna take all fucking night,” he grumbled and I smiled.

“I certainly hope so.”

He glared at me over his shoulder.  “Hey, still sober over here.”

“My apologies.  Roll over.”

He blinked.  “What.”

“You heard me.”

“Fucking— I hate you.”

But he shifted as requested, moving slowly and taking several calming breaths, keeping his back to me for as long as possible.  He laid down and glared up at the ceiling, his fingers drumming impatiently on the surface of the table.  I understood instantly why he was so unhappy; his arousal was impressive and impossible to deny.

I sat the bottle down and reached up to grip the back of my T-shirt.  Duo watched me yank it off over my head.  I held it up and offered, “Modesty?  Or something else to focus your energies on?”

He looked from the T-shirt that I was willing to spread across his hips to my expression and back again.  Then his lips quirked.  He tucked his arms behind his head and drawled, “Go on, Tro.  Let’s see what you got.”

Looking into his eyes, I accepted the challenge, tilting the bottle and splashing a gulp between my lips.  I’d barely swallowed it when I leaned down and opened my mouth over his cock.

“Holy sh—!”

I sucked him into my mouth, taking as much of him as I could, then I slowly – very slowly – sucked my way off of him.

He was panting, flushed, his eyes glossy with heat.

“Well?” I asked.

He pressed his hands over his face and groaned.  “Fucking hell.  That’s—Jesus.”

“Does it burn?” I asked of the trace amounts of vodka on his sensitive skin.

“In all the best ways, Goddamn you.”

I held out the bottle and nudged his elbow.  He took it with a swipe of his arm, lifted himself up on his side and tipped back a swallow.  He reluctantly handed it back to me.  When I took it, I didn’t avoid touching his hand.  Our fingers brushed and he gulped.

“Look, Tro.  You gotta know—this thing—the shots…”

“Yes?”

He looked me in the eye, bit his lip, and glanced away with a shake of his head.  “Never mind.”

“No.”  I leaned over him, caging him in and chasing after his evasive gaze with mine.  “Make me earn it, Duo.  What?”

“It doesn’t fucking matter, Trowa!”

“Don’t,” I whispered, pressing a finger to his lips, “tell me it doesn’t fucking matter, Duo, because it fucking does.”  I slid my finger down and away, catching his lower lip briefly and tugging it into a pout.  “It matters.  This matters.”  I touched my mouth to his, watching his reaction.

“Don’t fuck with me,” he breathed against my lips.

“We finished the game,” I pointed out.  “If you want to leave, I won’t stop you.”

“I should.”

I cupped his cheek.  “All right.”

He nudged his chin up the smallest increment.  Just enough to bring his lips in contact with mine.  “Why’d you kiss me, Tro?”

“Because, Duo, I _hoped.”_

His eyes searched my face.  I hid nothing.  I never had.  Not from him.

_Open your eyes and see me, Duo._

He sucked in a sharp breath.  “You didn’t—it wasn’t—?”

“Wasn’t what?” I needed to know.

“A victory fuck.”

Fury rolled through me, swelling like thunderheads, like stormy ocean waves, like a tempest.  I gritted my teeth.  I did not trust myself not to shout.  I didn’t even trust myself not to bite him.  I pushed myself off the table, off of him.  He grabbed my arms.

I turned my head away.  “Get dressed, Duo.”

“Fuck you,” he refused, gripping me tighter.  “What the hell was I supposed to think when…”

His voice dried up as my agony increased.  “Don’t stop now,” I drawled.  “Please tell me what a joke I was.”

“You asshole, you were never a joke.  You were—you are—dammit, victory fuck or not, I would have said ‘yes’ either way.”

I narrowed my eyes, weighing his sincerity.

“Why the hell d’you think I’ve been trying to hate you half as much as I hate myself?”

Those sharp edges.  His rage.  This was why.  He didn’t think he could say “no” to me, even though I’d made him think that all I wanted from him was a fuck.

I was just as blind as he was.

“For fuck’s sake!” he burst out.  “I am lying naked on a fucking snooker table, here, Trowa.”

My lips quirked.

He drummed his fingers against my biceps where he was no longer clutching me.  “So… I was thinking… maybe we could—”

I kissed him.  Softly.  “We can do whatever you want,” I promised.  “After I finish my drink.”

He eyed the bottle.  It was still over half full.  The surface of the liquor had just sunk below the edge of the label.  I could practically hear his next complaint, so I amended, “Three more shots.”

“And then it’s my turn,” he informed me.

“There’s no need for threats.  I plan to make these count.”

He balanced himself on his elbows and I poured my first shot onto his belly, watched his jaw clench and his nostrils flare as I lowered my mouth to his skin.  Lapped at the surface of the pooled liquor with the tip of my tongue.  Inhaled deeply as I executed a longer swipe.  His hands were fisted.  His thighs tense.  I sealed my lips over his navel and sucked.

His head fell back between his hunched shoulders and a groan eked out around the lip he was biting.  I tongued his belly clean and only after I ceased was he able to catch his breath somewhat.

I poured the second.  Sipped delicately at his skin.  He whimpered, shifting his thighs open to accommodate the fullness in his balls.  This time, I sucked up the liquor milliliter by milliliter with small, sharp applications of my mouth.

“You—fucking—tsar!” he gasped.

 _“Da?”_ I murmured, my tongue slipping into his belly button.

“Hnnn- _nnn!”_   His exhalation turned into a nasal whine when I pressed my open mouth to his navel and sucked yet again.  My tongue pressed into the hollow of his belly button rhythmically as I rocked against him.

“Fuck. Fuck.  Fuckfuckfuck—!”

His hips were rolling, rolling, rolling and his arousal pressed against my jaw.  My jeans had been fairly snug for most of the evening, most notably when Duo had inquired if tongue-fucking would be an option, but now they were getting painfully tight.  When I finally released him, he slumped back against the table, his chest flushed and heaving like he’d just run flat out for a kilometer, leaped across a ravine, pulled himself hand-over-fist up into Deathscythe’s cockpit, and then been kissed senseless.

He whimpered.  “Trowa.  Oh God.  Oh God.”

“I have one more shot left.”

“I’m not gonna make it,” he wheezed.

“I’ll make it worth your while.”

“Hmmm, nope.  Tossing in the towel.  Waving the white flag.  _Kaput.”_

I tugged at the buttons on my fly, providing instant relief and allowing me greater range of movement.  I crawled up onto the table with him, pressing panting kisses to his belly, his chest, his collarbone, his neck.  “Do you want me to stop?” I checked.  I felt lightheaded, either from the vodka or from him.  The combination of both, perhaps.  Definitely.  Absolutely.

His hands fisted in my hair.  “Are you fucking insane?”  He tugged my face up to his and kissed me.  Urging me closer-closer-closer with a hand at the base of my skull and his tongue stroking between my parted lips, just glancing over my own tongue and the taste of him was—

I groaned.  It wasn’t until he started shoving at my jeans and underwear that I realized I’d stretched out on top of him, one knee between his as our hips slowly moved together in a lazy, grinding rhythm.  I pulled back, pressing my forehead to his and opened my eyes.

“I may be drunk,” I informed him.

He chuckled.  “So I’m gonna be the voice of reason here?”

“No,” I assured him, licking his earlobe.  “But I might fuck this up.”

“Naw, ya won’t.”

I wanted to ask how he knew that, but then he was pushing me onto my back and I was blinking up at him blearily as he lifted the bottle of vodka and took a drink.  Then he said with a wide grin, “Hold still, babe.”

Vodka sloshed and splattered on my belly and I groaned.  Duo was taking my last shot. 

And I was letting him.

I pushed his bangs back from his face as he leaned down.  Our eyes met.  His pink tongue emerged from behind his smile, curled and collected a meager two – perhaps three – drops of vodka.  Fuck, this was torture.  Visceral.  Primal.  His mouth on my stomach was like a knife at my throat, like his taste in my mouth, like his tongue on my cock.

I exhaled a moan.  Duo’s eyes glittered with heat.

He started sucking, drawing tiny patches of skin into his mouth.  I could feel the edges of his teeth and my hips jerked.  His hands clamped down on my thighs as he opened his mouth and proceeded to demonstrate exactly what I’d been doing to him.

Fuck.  His mouth was hot.  Tight.  Wet.  He thrust his tongue into my navel again and again, guiding my hips in rolling motions that went straight to my cock.  Made my toes tingle and my thighs fall open.

“Dammit, Duo,” I swore.  I swore this was it.  I was dying.  I was flying.  I was his.

He released my skin and mused between kittenish licks, “So, did you get a bed with this place or was that an extra charge?”

“Bed.  Yes.  I have one of those.”

“Do you mind sharing?”

“Absolutely not.  No.  Your ass in my bed.  My life’s ambition.”

He chuckled.  “Well, I guess dreams can come true.”  He slid off the edge of the snooker table, dragging my jeans, underwear, socks, and shoes off in the process.  Fuck, he was smooth.  His hands, his smile, his taste.  Better than the vodka.

“I’m not might-be-drunk,” I told him suddenly, rolling my head to the side as he stood up.  “I am drunk.”  I closed my eyes.  “I’m rambling in my head.”

“Is that so?  What about?”

“You.”

He leaned over me, drawing circles over my cheek with his callused fingertips.  “What’re ya sayin’ about me?”

I opened my mouth, but I just couldn’t grab onto a single word.  I reached for him instead, pulling him down to my lips and kissing him like I wasn’t lying on a snooker table the night before I was to set foot in the Kremlin to acknowledge my birthright.  I kissed him like we were on our honeymoon, like we’d been lovers for years, like his mouth was all mine, always had been and always would be.

When our lips separated with a soft, wet sound, he panted, “That’s some compliment.”

“I’ve got more where that came from.”

“Prove it.”  He took a step back and I leaned up, tracking him, ignoring the fact that his hand was gripping my elbow the entire time.  I was stalking him, damn it.

Right into the bathroom.

“You took a wrong turn,” I told his shoulder as he turned on the tap and filled a cup.

“A detour,” he corrected me.  “Drink this.”

“Why.”

“Because it’ll make me happy.”

I sighed.  “Fine.”

I downed the cold water in three gulps.  The sound of the shower turning on drew my attention.  “Also not a bed.”

“Thank you, Captain Obvious.  C’mere.”

I stepped – or stumbled – in and Duo shut the pebbled glass doors behind us.  “Stand here.  No, wait.  Lean here.  There ya go.  Hold this.”

I wrapped my fingers around the end of his braid which had just been thrust into my grasp.  I lifted it to my face and brushed the tail over my chin.  The steam was thickening and the water was hot as it struck, splattered, and slid over my right side.

Slick, soapy hands rubbed circles on my chest and I opened my eyes.  When had Duo covered himself with bubbles?  I lifted the hand that wasn’t holding his braid out of the spray and traced the border of one particularly reflective soap bubble.

I sighed as he soaped my chest, neck, shoulders, arms, back, legs, ass and… My breath caught as his fingers thoroughly investigated other things in that general vicinity.

I wanted.  I was Want itself.  I was incoherent with it, groaning my approval as his fingertips massaged soapy circles between my cheeks.  I moaned some more when that sudsy hand cradled my balls and wrapped around my cock.  My fingers splayed over his chest and speared up through the lather to curl around his neck, rubbing little circles of my own against his skin.

More times than I could count, words jumbled together on my tongue.  Words like “forever” and “daydream” and “real” and “yours.”  But my tongue wouldn’t move.  Maybe if Duo kissed me again?  A hot wave of pins and needles flashed over my skin.  Yes, kissing Duo.  That was the best idea I’d had all night.  I would follow through on that just as soon as he looked at me.  Oh, wait.  My eyes were closed again.  Fuck.

I forced them open just as Duo was rinsing both of us off.  With profound disappointment, I realized that our shower was over.  He toweled me dry.  I held his braid as he toweled himself dry.  Then he took my arm and led me to the bedroom.

Duo flipped back the covers and I rolled between the cool sheets.  The refreshing caress cleared my head from the steamy muddle it had been and I could think in a straight line.

I let go of his braid and reached for his jaw.  “Come on in; the water’s fine.”

“Jesus, you’re still fucking drunk.”

“I have never fucked anyone drunk.”

He snorted, but crawled in beside me.  I hauled him closer and he squeaked as our knees bumped.

“Hmm,” I approved, leaning over him to press butterfly kisses to his shoulder, his collarbone, his throat.  With every instant of contact between my mouth and his skin, I could feel myself collecting.  Sobering.  Eager to make the most of our time together.

“How can I have you?” I asked the flesh over his heart.

“Tro, you’re still too drunk for—”

“Ask me a question.  Anything.”

His fingers dug into my hair and I looked up.  “Are you really gonna do this?  Be a Romanov?”

Of course not.  No matter what my blood said about who my parents had been, I would never be a Romanov.  “I’m just a soldier.”

“So were a lot of tsars.”

“Not helping.”

“Look, Tro, you’re more than that.”

“A soldier or a tsar?”

“Both.”

I cradled his face and looked into his eyes.  They were no longer hard or sharp.  Duo was looking back at me.  Just Duo.  “How do I just be this?”

“This?”

I drew a fingertip from his temple to his lips.  “Duo Maxwell’s lover.”

“Uh... we haven’t actually—”

“We’re naked in a hotel bed together.  It’s not that much of stretch.”

He leaned forward and smiled against my mouth.  “OK, fine.  You’re arguing semantics – you’re sober.”

He moved over me and I rolled onto my back, drawing him to my mouth and welcoming his tongue when it ventured past my lips.  I kissed him with singular focus, relishing every moment, every motion, everything about him.  If he was only going to let me have this one night, then I was going to imprint him on my body.  A tattoo visible only to me.

We were both panting when he pulled back and studied me.  There was something happening between us, something I didn’t dare put a name to, something that unsettled him.  I tried not to curl my hands around him to keep him from putting more distance between us, but he didn’t.  He lowered his mouth to my chest and we both fell back into the freefall of sensation.

I caught one of his roaming hands and brought it to my mouth, nipping and sucking at his fingertips as he licked and kissed and moaned against my chest and belly.  He waited until he’d pulled his middle finger from my mouth before fitting his lips around my cockhead.

I didn’t have enough breath to shout, but I surged up onto my elbows, rocked my hips toward him and spread my legs wide in a complete and utter and unmistakable – yet silent – _yes._

He groaned, wrapping his arms around my thighs and pushing his chest against everything of mine that was on offer.  His mouth descended slowly, lifted even more slowly.  The suction was indescribable.  I wrapped my legs around his shoulders and twisted the sheets in my hands, wordless from the intensity of him.

He eased back and kissed my cockhead with lips and tongue and _fuck_ I’d never wanted to _not_ come so badly in my life.

“You close?” he checked and I nodded, jaw clenched and hands fisted.

“Should I finish you like this?”

I shook my head.

His lips quirked.  “Good.  Roll over.”

Oh fuck.  Was he—was this—?  It didn't matter.  I turned over, settling my cock against the cool sheets, but then he was pulling my hips up and back and fuck yes he was going to actually going to—!

And then he was.  His hot breath puffed against my ass and his tongue was—

“Ahh!  Duo!  Duo!”

He hummed, moving over my entrance with swirling motions.  I braced myself on my elbows, tore at the sheets with fingers that were suddenly more like claws.  He started sucking and with each hot draw of his mouth, he pulled my hips toward him, rubbing my chest and nipples against the sheets.  He was completely and totally focused on softly, sweetly fucking me with his mouth.  I couldn't even remember my own name, but I could say his.  Made it my mission to remind him of it every other second.

Then his hand slipped between my thighs and gripped my steaming cock as his tongue pushed inside. I could feel my back bowing, my body thrusting, my cock swelling – it was far too much sensation to allow for thought at all.

I screamed.

I screamed until I ran out of breath.  The force of my orgasm flattened my lungs and I couldn’t draw another, couldn’t beg or whimper or curse.  But somehow, I was breathing.  I noticed this an instant before I heard Duo’s voice calling me back from whatever dimension my being had been blasted into.

“—OK?  Tro?  Jesus fuck, babe, say something.”

“Nuh,” I managed.

“Nuh?  Is that a ‘good’ nuh or a ‘bad’ nuh?”

Groaning, I rolled onto my side, avoiding the splatters of come on the sheet.  “That,” I panted, “was a ‘please do it again’ nuh.”

“Good to know.”

“Stop smirking,” I ordered without opening my eyes.

“Make me.”

I blindly reached for him, grabbed what felt like an arm, and pulled him over my back.  He tumbled to the bed with a _thump!_

“Oi,” he objected.

“Quit your complaining.  You’ve got the dry half.”

“Thanks so much.”

I flopped over onto my other side so I could crack an eyelid open to peer at him.  He was grinning widely, his head propped up in his hand.  His other hand was moving slowly over his still hard cock.  I lashed out, smacking his arm away.  “My turn.”

“Yeah?  You take requests?”

“You might recall a thing I said.  On the snooker table.”  I kissed him deeply and pulled back to remind him, “We will do whatever you want.”

He sucked in a breath.  “Yeah, but what if I want this?”

He reached for my thigh, tugging my leg over his waist.  Twisting his hips, he reached down and I felt his cockhead press against my entrance.  Just the slightest kiss of skin.  I kept my eyes open and my face angled toward his so he could see what he was doing to me.  How much I wanted it.

“No complaints,” I said.  “But no lube or condoms, either.”

He smirked.  “Gotcha covered.”

“A man with a plan,” I observed with arched brows.

“Yeah, except I was pretty sure that it’d be me bent over a desk before being shown the door.”

I didn’t get angry this time.  We’d already established our mutual stupidity.  I said, “I’m not going to let you hate us.”

His fingers curled against my side.  His fingernails dug into the flesh over my ribs.  “Us?” he echoed and I could see the fear that I’d glimpsed earlier in his eyes.

“I didn’t bring any friends to this party.  It’s just you and me.”

He gulped, his breathing irregular.

“Jacket pocket?” I guessed.

“Left side.”

“Don’t move an inch.”

“If I do?”

“It’s back to the snooker table for you.”

His cock twitched.  “Not much of a punishment.”

“It wasn’t meant to be.”  I slid out of bed, grabbing a handful of tissues which I quickly used on myself before chucking them into the wastepaper basket.  I found Duo’s jacket on the snooker table and raided his left-side pocket.  A small, travel-size, unopened bottle of lubricant and an eight-pack box of condoms.  The price tags were from a duty free store.

Returning to the bedroom, I paused on the threshold and leaned against the doorjamb.

“What?” he asked from where he was sprawled on the enormous bed.

I rattled the box.  “Were you planning on spending these all in one place?”

“You bet your ass I was.  They were burning a hole in my pocket.”

I deftly plucked at the easy-open release tab and tore the plastic wrapping off.  I had to use my teeth on the bottle’s shrink wrap, but by the time I’d crossed the room, I had our logistics sorted.

“Gimme,” Duo said holding out his hands.

I passed the lube and condoms to him, but he reached around them and grabbed my wrists, pulling me into bed and on top of him.  I crouched over his hips and watched him as he looked at me.  Just looked his fill.  I wasn’t hard and, though I was relaxed, I didn’t think I was particularly sexy, but when Duo’s gaze finally slid up to mine, he had the look of a very satisfied man.

“Is your order to your liking?” I inquired.

“God, yes.”  He slid his hands along my arms, over my shoulders, and down my back to my ass, palming the cheeks and pressing me toward him.  The lube and condoms tumbled from my hands against the pillows and I slid my arms under his shoulders, gently tunneling my fingers into the base of his messy braid and fitting our mouths together.

I would never get tired of kissing him.

Never.

His hands roamed and roved over me, learning every patch of skin, every raised scar, every curve and corner and crease.  I let him have use of his mouth as I pushed my hips back into his hands and nuzzled his neck.  Beneath the faint perfume of the soap, I could smell him and his scent was like a bullet zooming down my spine before exploding deep in my belly.  My cock twitched and he hummed his approval.

“Don’t wait on my account,” I told him.  “I’ll catch up.”

“Yes, you will!”

He reached over my shoulders and I heard the sound of a plastic cap snapping open.  I licked Duo’s earlobe as he worked.  Bit him gently.  The bottle tumbled to the bed and Duo’s left hand was smoothing down my back, curling around my ass, tugging, and I widened my knees.

“Jesus, Tro,” he groaned and then the cool, slick fingers of his right hand were pressing against my entrance.

“Ah,” I consented wordlessly against his skin.  He caressed and massaged.  I sucked in one breath and panted out the next against his chest.

“Look at me,” he whispered.

I did.

I felt one finger slide inside.  My jaw dropped.  My cock swelled.  The head rubbed against the inside of Duo’s thighs.  I was sure I was leaving a trail of moisture in my wake.

He felt it and drew a shuddering breath.  “Fuck.”

I moved against his touch, urging him to move things along.

“Fuck,” he said again.

“That is on the agenda,” I confirmed.

His eyes squeezed shut briefly.  “Are you absolutely sure you want this, Tro?”

“For fuck’s sake, Duo,” I replied without any real heat.  “I’m straddling you on a fucking bed _naked._   Can I send you your engraved invitation later?”

He barked out a laugh.  Clenched his stomach muscles as he leaned up and his mouth latched onto my nipple.  A second finger joined the first and he started stretching me with firm, persistent thrusts.  I scraped my thumbnails against the soft skin behind his ears and his fingers curled inside me.  Curled and pressed against—

“Fuck!”  It would have been a shout if I’d had enough breath to launch it from my lungs.  Instead, it fell softly, almost gently, from my lips.

Duo fell back against the pillows and studied me as he repeated the motion.  My sight blurred around the edges.  I was riding against him, starving for more of that feeling that made my cock throb and my heart thud and my scalp tingle and my skin blister.

I watched him watching me.  I could feel that I was hard again, and I wanted what this was building toward, but I was loathe to give up this feeling.

Three fingers.  A burn as my muscles stretched.  I pushed back against him but it was too shallow.

“Deeper,” I ordered him.

“I will be,” he promised breathlessly, his eyes wide with awe.  “I’ve heard it’s better on your hands and knees…”

“Fuck that,” I declined, collecting a wrapped condom and flicking it back and forth in front of his face.  “Put it on.”

His fingers withdrew and he did as told.  I arched over him, making room between our bodies for him to maneuver.  The instant he’d finished rolling it on, I was reaching with one hand for the bottle of lube, flicking open the cap with my thumb and using my ring and little fingers to squeeze a large dollop into the palm of my hand.  I slid my arm between us.  I met his gaze and we shared a look that was wild with need, passion, and fear.  I grabbed his cock.  His hands shot to my hips.  His breath slammed out of his lungs and I watched him arch into my tight, slick grip.

Things were about to get very tight.  For both of us.

I angled him against my entrance.  Pushed back, bore down, burned for him as he pressed deeper.

“Slow the fuck down, Tro.  Jesus Christ.”

I slowed, but I didn’t stop.  Couldn’t stop.  I was caught in the gravity of him.  There was no escape.

I grabbed the back of his neck with my clean hand and pulled him toward me.  “This,” I gritted out between my teeth, “is us.”

“Yeah,” he agreed.  “I feel you, baby.  Us.  I feel us.”

“Are you still afraid?”

He swallowed.  Nodded.  “Yeah.”

“I won’t hurt you,” I vowed.

He squeezed his eyes shut.  His fingers clawed down my back and dug into my hips.  “Tomorrow—”

“I won’t hurt you,” I repeated and thrust toward him.

Fuck he was hard.  And so damned deep inside me.  Burned like he was coating my tender flesh with vodka.  I thrust again.

His back bowed.  Curses squeezed out between his teeth.  His eyes narrowed, glittered.

“Are you going to make me do all the work?” I challenged him and then he was pushing and pulling at my hips, rocking me against him in a rhythm that sizzled.  The pressure built at the base of my cock, weighing me down and making it impossible to remember a time when he hadn’t been this deep inside me, when my hips hadn’t been pressed this closely to his, when my body hadn’t been rolling and roiling with instinct.

I reached behind me for his thighs, braced myself, tilted my head back, and rode him.  Felt him.  Took as much of him as he’d give.

“Trowa—fuck, baby—Trowa—look at me—”

I opened my eyes as one of his hands ventured from my hip up my chest to my neck.  He spanned my throat with his grip, dug his fingers in, and pulled me down until our chests were nearly touching.

Suddenly, his cock touched that something else.

My eyes widened.  I shouted out a breath.  Stiffened.  Tightened.

Duo groaned and kept on thrusting, relentlessly rubbing that spot inside me that his fingers had found.  The spot that had strung me taut with pleasure and shocked my cock back into hardness.  I couldn’t speak.  Couldn’t think.

I stared into his eyes as he bit his lip and guided my hips against every single surging motion of his cock.

“Baby?” he asked.

I couldn’t breathe, the pleasure was so acute, the sensations so overwhelming.  I tried to say his name.  My mouth moved.  Waves of pins-and-needles heat washed over my skin, turning me inside-out and exposing my every nerve to his touch, his breath, his passion.

“Yes,” I mouthed and suddenly there was more.  So much more.  He was rocking me, burning me, destroying me with his feet flat on the bed and his hips rising again and again.  I was barely aware of him sliding one hand down my arm, collecting my slick fingers and pressing them over the flushed, taut skin of my cockhead.

Too much.

Too much.

Eyes closed.

Voice shut.

Mind stopped.

Fire and heat and everything that was Duo and me and _us_ burst forth – a whole universe of possibility and promise from the singularity where our bodies merged.

In that moment, I understood everything.  Could conquer anything.  I was undefeatable.

For the first time in my life, surrender and victory were one in the same.

“Trowa… Trowa…”

Duo’s hand was petting my face, pushing my hair back from my sweaty brow.  I took a deep breath.  My lashes fluttered as I summoned the energy to lift the lids.  I blinked at him for a moment before I realized what I was seeing was tears.

“Duo?” I breathed, curving my body over him in an effort to protect and shelter him.

He shook his head and I chased after his tears with my fingertips until he covered his face with a hand and scrubbed angrily at his tightly shut eyes.

“Did I hurt you?” I breathed, terrified.

“No.  No, Goddamn it.  It was fucking perfect.”  He dropped his hand.  “You’re perfect,” he breathed.

I pressed my chest against his, wondering if feeling my weight would ground him.  I kissed him.  His mouth was salty and thick with tears.  I kissed him and he kissed me.  We cleaned each other’s skin, our mouths separating for only the briefest of moments.  I tore the sweat-dampened and semen-splattered sheets from the bed, wrapping both of us up in the duvet.

I kissed his lips, his jaw, his temple.  His fingers curled into my shoulders.

I could feel exhaustion pulling me toward unconsciousness.  “Stay,” I pleaded.  “Stay.  Be with me.”

I held onto awareness until I felt him nod, felt his braid rub against my jaw.  Then I sighed out a breath, reaffirmed my hold on him, and slept.

An instant later, Duo was calling me.  “Tro.  Baby, let me up.”

“Stay with me,” I murmured against his braid, tightening my arms around him.  The glow of sunlight-through-silk-curtains pressed against my eyelids, but I stubbornly kept them shut.  “Stay.”

“OK, baby.  OK.  But I gotta use the john.”

I unlocked my arms from around him and felt him slide away.  It took everything I had to remain where I was and wait for him to come back.  To trust him.

The sound of the toilet seat banging open.  Passing urine.  Gurgling flush.  Gushing water tap.  Rattling towel rack.  Bare feet on the bathroom tiles.

Silence.

I held my breath, ready to launch myself out of bed and go after him bare-assed if necessary.

The mattress dipped.

I lifted the duvet and he slid back into my arms.  His skin was cool to the touch from the chill of the autumn morning.  He shivered and I pulled him closer.  “Are you hungry?” I asked.

He snorted out a chuckle.  “Fuck, yeah.”

I stretched an arm back toward the nightstand and collected the menu. “We’ll order room service before we go.”

He took the leather-bound folio and I snuggled against him.  He was quiet for so long that I started to doze off.

“We?” he asked me.

“Hm-hmm,” I affirmed, pressing against him to pass the heat from my body into his.  He was shivering again.  “Coffee?” I guessed.

“Trowa.”

I smiled.  “Won’t need to call room service for that.”

“Trowa!”

I opened my eyes and tilted my head back onto the mussed pillows, startled by his urgent expression.

“What are you—did you just—what—?”

I tucked a flyaway strand of hair behind his ear.  “I’m leaving with you.”

He gaped at me.  I ran a hand up his thigh, over his hip, tugged on his waist.  This was what I needed.  Duo.  Just Duo.

“How can I have you?” I breathed around the frightful knot in my chest as he continued staring at me.

“What are you—what is this?”

“This is me making my decision.”

He slid down in bed, pressing against my side and I could breathe a little easier.  “Trowa, baby, you’d—”

“I – _we_ will go wherever you like,” I told him, opening myself to hope one more terrifying time.  At this moment, there was so much more on the line than just a kiss.  “I don’t need this,” I explained, gesturing to the room, the wealth, the weight of the Romanov name.  I didn’t need a new name.  The old one suited me just fine.  Every time Duo said it, he showed me how alive I really was.

His hand flattened over the center of my chest and he looked up into my eyes.  “But, maybe they – maybe these people – need _you.”_  

I stiffened.

“I’m not saying you should agree to anything today,” he whispered, his voice nearly cracking and crumbling.  “Just go and listen to what they have to say.”

I studied his drawn features.  “Come with me.”

He stared at me.  “Trowa, I’m just—”

“The man I want to be with,” I interrupted.

“I am?” he replied flatly.

“Fuck, Duo.  Get this through your head – I will walk through fire for you.  Got it?”

His lips curved.  “Yeah.  I think so.”

“Good.  What do you want to eat?”  I rolled out of bed, picked up the phone, and dialed the extension for room service.  As the call connected, I lifted a brow at Duo and, smirking, he rattled off an impressive list which I repeated verbatim.

“Hold a moment, please,” I told the overwhelmed kitchen staff and asked Duo, “was all that for you?”

“I’ll share.”

“Make that a carafe of coffee and two cups.”  I confirmed the room number and hung up.

“How much time do we have?” he asked.

“Thirty, forty minutes.”

Eyes sparkling, he dragged me into the shower.

I ended up answering the door in a complementary fuzzy bathrobe.  Duo was still in the bathroom, drying and combing out his hair.  I rejoined him as quickly as I could.

“What time are they coming up to collect you?” he asked as he passed a dry lock of hair to me and I obligingly held it out of his way so he could angle the blow dryer at the last of the damp strands underneath.

“Oh eight thirty.”

“Look, normally, I don’t mind showing up uninvited for a party, but—”

“No,” I told him, forbade him from making his doubts any more real by voicing them.  Of course there would be resistance, but both of us were fighters.  Our gazes met in the bathroom mirror.  “We’ll handle it.”

And we did.  As Duo had nothing but jeans, a T-shirt, and a leather jacket to wear, I matched it with my own travel-wrinkled clothes, ignoring the three-piece tailored suit that had been provided for me.

I stood beside Duo as he met derisive looks with straight shoulders and a proud tilt to his chin.  I followed his lead as he returned forced smiles with genuine charm and shook reluctantly offered hands with enthusiasm.

I repeated the same maxim over and over, refusing to acknowledge even the slightest suggestion to the contrary: “This is Duo Maxwell.  He’s going to sit in today.”

And that was exactly what Duo did.  He sat in the seat beside mine, he jotted down notes in the margins of the papers I was given, he subtly signed his immediate impressions in military shorthand.  He didn’t say a word aloud, but in every other way, he said plenty.

“It’s a lot of bullshit to sort through,” he told me when we returned to the hotel room that evening.

My brain was aching and I wanted, with every fiber of my being, to share a bit more of that vodka with him, order room service, and crawl into bed, but he was nearly vibrating with energy.  The vodka, room service, and bed would still be there in a bit.

“Those nitwits probably think they’re gonna raise the money for all those charitable works you’re supposed to endorse through taxes and you can’t let ‘em do that to the people.  But ya can’t take away their cushy salaries, either, because these are the jerks that are putting you in charge.”

I followed Duo into the suite’s central room, paused on the threshold to the bedroom, and slipped my hands into my pockets.  Watching him think aloud.

“’Course, that’s what they want ya to think – they want you to think you’re in charge, so you’re gonna have to roll with that.  Get public support – the end game is that you actually _are_ in charge.  Relena can totally give you the scoop on how it’s done.  Damn, it’s gonna be a long haul, but holy shit this could be an amazing thing, Tro.  So long as you can keep those bozos happy to be on a short leash.”

I’d figured as much.  I wondered if Duo was thinking in terms of blackmail and bribes.  I was leaning toward flattery and misdirection.

He rambled on, “To tell ya the truth, I’m kinda geeked about this.  Shit, Tro.  You could do so much good for people.  Not just for the people living here on Earth, but for the colonies that have trade contracts with this country.  Holy shit.  This is—this could be…”  He shook his head in wonder.  “How do you say ‘no’ to something like this?”

I had no doubt that I could.  Still might.  But if Duo wanted to be a part of it – and it seemed like he did – then the decision to accept would be that much easier to make.  “I can’t do this alone.”

“Don’t think they’re gonna let ya, man.  You’re gonna have advisors crawling up your—”

“I won’t do this alone, Duo,” I amended.  I needed him.  His goodness and generosity.  His talent for showing me the silver lining on the darkest thunderclouds.  His ability to open my eyes to the truly awesome potential that life offered.

He spun around and looked at me.  Stared.

I crossed the room and stood in front of him.  “Give me a couple months.  A month,” I negotiated in response to his visible hesitation.  “We’ll see the country.”  I gripped his hand, rubbing my thumb over his knuckles.

His smile was crooked.  His eyes sparkled.  “A month, huh?”

I nodded.  We’d need at least that much time to judge the political situation and the needs of the people for ourselves.  I wouldn’t know if I was making a difference if I didn’t even know what the issues were.  Besides, I would need at least that much time to show him that I wasn’t going anywhere; we would need that much time to take the first steps in exploring what he and I could be together; he might need that much time before he could begin to invest as much hope in us as I was.

If he would stay, I would wait however long it took.

“Is that a problem?”

He ducked his head.  Bit his lip.  Squinted at the sunset beyond the gauzy curtains.  “Uh… not really, no, since I’m kinda between jobs… an’ homes at the moment.”

“What happened with the scrap yard?”

He shrugged.  “I was only helping Hilde hold down the fort until her fiancé finished this big salvage contract in L4.”

“Hm.  Where’s your stuff?”

He grinned wryly.  “In a locker at the train station.”

“All of it?”

“Yeah.  I, uh, was on my way to the circus.”

“Who told you where I was?”

“Cathy.”  He rubbed the back of his neck as he stared at our joined hands.  “I, um, said that I owed you an apology.  And then, when she told me you were here in Moscow, I put it together.”  He looked up and the sharpness I saw in his gaze had nothing to do with anger.  He quoted, “’The last Romanov found through the Family Reconciliation Effort’ – it’s been all over the news.  It made a twisted kinda sense.”

So did Duo’s journey here.  I wondered where he would have gone if things had unfolded as he’d initially expected, but then decided it didn’t matter.  In no possible version of events would I have had him and then let him walk away without a fight.  If there was one thing I knew how to do, it was fight.

“We’ll leave in the morning.  Pick your things up on our way.”  I moved close, leaning against his side and sliding my arms around him.  I tilted my head against his and looked out the window at the cityscape just beginning to twinkle and glow in the gathering darkness.

He didn’t ask where we were going.  He gripped my arms tightly and held me in place.  This place.  Right here beside him.  “On our way,” he mused, rolling the words on his tongue, savoring them, treasuring them.  “Yeah, OK.”

 

 

_Excerpt from “A Brief History of Russia for Secondary Education,” publication date A.C. 238—_

> Tsar Trowa Semyon Alexei Romanov was crowned on January 1, After Colony 198 at the age of 18 after the Foundation for the Reestablishment of the Earth Monarchies located him via a biological match in the Family Reconciliation Effort database in the fall of A.C. 197.  A former Gundam pilot of the War of A.C. 195, Trowa affected many political changes during his reign, working for the economic equality and opportunities of all Russians and all residents of the Earth Sphere United Nation living in the colonies of outer space.
> 
> One of his most controversial projects was the foundation of the Allocation Forces, a group of highly trained operatives whose mission was to identify and locate black market profiteers of illegal substances, human trafficking, and weapons.  The funds seized in the course of these paramilitary operations continues, to this day, to be used to provide housing, education, and employment.  For over twenty years, the director of the organization and the chief trainer of many of the men and women dedicated to this cause was none other than Trowa’s husband and fellow former Gundam pilot, Duo Maxwell of the L2 colonies.  It is well-known that Trowa would evaluate the soldiers himself, challenging many of them to one-on-one combat to test their readiness for fieldwork.  It is rumored that on more than one occasion, Trowa and Duo would personally accompany agents on operations, using their expertise to protect the lives of both soldiers and civilians.
> 
> A visit to any one of dozens of Russian countryside villages and towns will reveal a commemorative plaque in honor of Trowa and Duo.  In the months preceding the Tsar’s instatement, both men were reported to have traveled the country, affecting change despite their anonymity.  They were married on December 21, A.C. 197 as Duo and Trowa Maxwell, at Novgorod, and are succeeded by their son, Tsar Rurik II.
> 
> May his reign – and that of all the tsars to come – be just and true.

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos are lovely. Comments are LOVE... or should I say "Wuv... twuu wuv."  
> (^_^)
> 
> For more Russian!Trowa stories, check out Amberly's works here on AO3. You won't regret it. (^_^)


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